With more than 21 books to his credit, Frank Moohouse is best known for his short stories, novels, essays, and script writing. He won the 2001 Miles Franklin Literary Award for his novel, “Dark Palace”; which together with “Grand Days” and “Cold Light” forms the ‘Edith Trilogy’. His novels, sharpened with humour and intellectual insight, have been likened to those of Henry James. Frank has also been actively debating and participating in areas like censorship, copyright, gay and social liberation.
In India after a gap of 25 years to attend a literature festival, the author speaks about censorship, his sojourns into the wilderness, his favourite Indian authors and his love for wining and dining.
Excerpts:
What change do you see in India ?
I was on a cultural exchange visit earlier and I stayed here for a couple of months. A lot is the same like the street life, poverty. And yet some things have changed. I see many high rise buildings now which were not there so many years back.
What made you so sensitive to the issue of censorship in Australia?
As a young writer, our stories were censored all the time. Ours was the most censored country in the world before 1970. The novels of James Joyce and D H Lawrence were banned in Australia. Our stories could not describe sexual behaviour. Our characters could never swear. So if anyone read Australian fiction before 1970, they would think that no one swore in Australia and the Martians would have no idea how we reproduced! We fought all that and won.
Did you fear for your safety?
It does cross my mind that they could do all sorts of things. I examine how a democracy lives with this sort of time of terror. The fear does come to mind but we still have a duty towards our citizens to fight for the freedom of expression, to question and reveal the misuse of their powers. And all our efforts have paid. The government finally backed off because of the protests. I got to know that I had been under surveillance since the age of 17. I think they were very astute but they did not get my politics right. I interviewed the director general of ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation), and that was a victory because he would just not talk to anyone. This was a new attitude that showed their openness and willingness to discuss their relationship with the citizens and their powers.
What other issues have you been espousing?
The ongoing frictions and tensions and injury which still comes from the English occupation and settlement of Australia in 1788 and the tragic damage it did to the Indigenous People who had been in Australia for 40,000 years means that, we, the following generations of white Australians, and the subsequent waves of immigration – have great difficulty to find ways of making amends and repairing the harm done – it may be irreparable.
You love to go for treks into the jungles...
When I do not feel the need to communicate with the world, I go non-verbal. No writing, no communication. Because, otherwise, my life is all the time full of words – writing, reading, blogging, the internet, emails, phone. Then I just go off into the bush. Wandering off for a few days is something I have been doing since I was a boy – camping with a tent, sleeping bag and campfire and carrying food. Now I carry whiskey as well. Australia has huge open spaces and it is possible to go into places where no other human being has ever been before. There’s a saying I read somewhere that sums it up: ‘I am never lost but sometimes I don’t know where I am’.
Who are your favourite Indian authors ?
Of course, I have read, Salman Rushdie, Raja Rao, Rohinton Mistry, Arundhati Roy, Arun Joshi, R.K Narayan, V.S.Naipaul – not because they were Indian writers so much as that they were writers who caught our attention for the quality of their work.
'Alice in Wonderland' made you become a writer. Any other author/book today that inspires you in any way?
I recently reread or read George Eliot’s seven works of fiction and discovered how much she speaks to us now – I think readers would find much wonder in “Middlemarch” and “Daniel Deronda” .
The most important book – for me—which I have read recently is Phillipe Sands book “East West Street” , a fascinating memoir about the evolution of the notions of crimes against humanity and genocide which had their origin in a strange way in the thinking of two lawyers from a town in Poland.
How important are literary awards to you ?
Those working as serious writers are plagued with the need to find a bonafide readership, to connect with readers – to find validation. Economic validation is unstable and even those who become best sellers, sometimes then doubt their literary importance. Prizes, reviews, letters from readers, go some way to giving us validation and helping us find our genuine readership – failing that we only have commitment to our work, or compulsion, to carry us through. Letters from readers I find the most gratifying of validations.
The “Edith Trilogy” is being adapted for a television series...
I am proud that one of our best television producers, Blackfella Films, has taken up the work. Naturally, writers have to prepare themselves for the reality that films and television are versions of the work, new creative works using the original as an inspiration and rarely a literal retelling of the story. Actors bring new insights to the work as well.
Your work has been translated into several languages. Do you think a translation retains the originality of the text?
Rarely, if ever does a writer have any way of testing a translation of their work apart from reports from people who have read it in the original and in translation – very few – and a writer has to trust the translator (if the writer ever gets to know the translator) and the judgement of the publisher.
Your biography is being written...
It is never in anyone’s life plan to have a biography written of them. At present two biographies are being written by the biographers. This ‘re-orders’ my memory and knowledge of myself maybe even ‘disorders’ it – it is a discomforting experience.
